


Autonomy

by bettergettheserioustoothpaste



Category: this isn't finished yet so i'm keeping it out of fandom tags for now
Genre: Bondage, F/M, Femdom, Pegging, Spanking, anton is also Himself, don't @ me., i'm entitled to my weird smut and you're just going to have to like it, in a thrilling display of multitasking, listen i'm real big on femdom and i think it was cute that he went to the hospital with her., local psychotherapist analyses and fucks a man at the same time, sybil is Herself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-05-23 07:54:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14930234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettergettheserioustoothpaste/pseuds/bettergettheserioustoothpaste
Summary: A newly-freed Papierwaite finds himself with an eldritch-god-shaped hole in his heart (and his abdomen) and no idea what to do about it. The past hundred years have left him unpractised at things like healthy coping mechanisms and/or thinking for himself.Which, as an aside, Sybil findsfascinating.





	Autonomy

**Author's Note:**

> when i said don't @ me i meant it.

It takes him until around the eighth day (ninth? tenth?) when he decides, as much as he doesn't want to admit it, he might need help.

The gods themselves only know why it's  _now_ that his body has chosen to be lethargic, and depressed, why he can't  _focus_ on anything, any more, why nothing holds his attention long enough for him to forget the empty feeling - physically, rather than a pretentious metaphor, though god knows he's never been above those. There's too much space around his torso. His arms hold themselves out of the way, instinctively, giving the nothing that is there a wide berth. Getting dressed still makes him feel intrinsically guilty, and he mumbles apologies as he buttons his shirt only to realise that he doesn't  _need_ to. He talks to himself. He frequently talks to himself. And he wonders, sometimes, for brief moments, why he doesn't have a reply back.

It's kind of wearing him thin. It's dreadfully lonely. He still sleeps on his back because he forgets he doesn't  _have_ to any more. He keeps himself as still as he can while he tries to fall asleep, tries not to irritate with restless fidgeting (because that had happened before) before he realises that it doesn't  _matter._  

Yog-Soggoth was not here. The Toybox had been destroyed, and with it, the effects of its' hold. He had only been held here as a result of the artefact - with it gone, Dr Norrington had been free to return to his full form and his own dimension.

And Anton tries not to resent him for it.

His hair has grown out. Just a little. He's seeing the beginnings of patchy stubble, too, but it's hard for him to  _motivate_ himself to shave. The compulsion is still there to be up and out and to rush through things as quickly as possible, but without having to seek solutions, without the need to send Yog-Soggoth back himself.... Anton's day to day life draws a little bit of a blank.

He doesn't know if he's ageing, now. There's a whole lot of Eldritch blood in him, still. It's kept him young and alive all of these years, and he swears he still feels it. (Either that or all the effects are gone and he's just slowly starving himself. He's not sure.) He doesn't feel like he is, but there have been days where he gets out of bed and winces and  _feels_ old. His back kills him. He suspects it's because he's used to carrying the weight, he's overcompensating for it. He walks with his back straight, almost  _backwards_. It's probably not good for him but it's a difficult habit to break. The idea that one day it might wear off and his hundred-and-fifty-year-old body might just crumble into dust hangs over his head, most days - along with the  _worse_ idea that it might not work like that. He might just.... age to where he's supposed to be and die, slowly and painfully, from the many, many things that would probably kill someone that old.

Enough of that. Regardless, after a week or so of this (or maybe two, he's not sure) (time doesn't  _matter_ to him any more!) Papierwaite makes the executive decision that it needs to stop.

He hadn't had a lot of time to think about this at first, to be fair. While the Toybox itself had been destroyed, most of its' power had been absorbed by Max, and... as much as Papierwaite would have loved to say au revoir to that particular obligation, he had supposed he could not, morally, hold the rabbit to the sins of his forefather. It wasn't his specific fault that he had been cursed with the ability, the sight, the gift, whatever anyone wanted to call it - which was an ideology that Papierwaite would have found easier to hold if the rabbit in question wasn't so fucking obnoxious. But he puts that aside in favour of... well, he feels like he should. He feels like the problem hasn't been solved yet. He feels like he needs to put his all in until it is. Maybe it's because the Toybox ruined his life as well, in a way.

It doesn't work out quite as well as they might have liked it to, but he's sure the situation resolved itself. He had more pressing matters to attend to.

-

When he eventually gets to the hospital with the very pregnant lady about to give birth, he learns two things about her. The first being that her name is Sybil Pandemik, and the second being that she used to be, among other things, a licensed psychotherapist. And perhaps call him weak for not being able to dig himself out of this hole, but as the days had gone by, he might have thought about it, just a little.  
  
Sybil had seemed quite nice, when she wasn't in immense amounts of pain. The actual process of childbirth had been something that he wasn't quite prepared for. The hospital had assumed that he was the father, which was perhaps the worst part, and he'd spent most of it just sat in a waiting room kicking his feet and reeling. This was when Yog-Soggoth had first made his unearthly departure (not _right_  then, obviously, but a little while earlier) and suddenly he wasn't there and then he was inside a rabbit and then he was out of the rabbit and then suddenly pregnant lady having a baby. It all went very fast. He was having a little bit of trouble processing it all, and he can't exactly blame himself for that.  
  
And then the baby's real father had appeared, and he was a talking statue, for some reason, and he'd not taken kindly to Anton's presence at all, so he'd bid Sybil good luck (she was going to need it) and then he left.

And he went back to the museum, because he didn't know what else to do, and then he'd gone to bed, because he was very tired.

And then he'd spent the next few days thinking about it.

And maybe he hasn't given it enough time. He waits a little longer to actually contact her, on the eighth or ninth or tenth day he  _thinks_ about it but he doesn't make any move to, just takes her business card from his pocket (and she'd given it to him and all, like she  _wanted_ him to have her number) and he sits there and looks at it and.... that's all he does. He can't go through with it. He puts it back. The next few days are just a blur of him... existing, mostly, and thinking it over. She'd just had a child, surely, and he couldn't expect her to be available, and it might not even be fair to ask, but..... he tells himself he needs help from  _someone_ , and he's not sure he has anyone else he can ask.

So... he tries. Eventually. It's probably another few days but the loneliness is deafening and there's no other course of action he can take, he's sure of it, so he dials the number before he can change his mind, and as the call connects he bites his lip and anxiously wracks his mind for how to start.

And there she is, on the other end, all of a sudden. "Hello?" she says, and that's  _it_ , and he was at least expecting something else, but it's over too quickly and now it's his turn to talk, and he stumbles over his words in a surprising amount of panic (he doesn't think he's ever felt this nervous about something so small) before he eventually manages a small, strained "Ms Pandemik." And there's a little silence on the other end before she says "I'm... sorry, who is this?"  
  
And Anton puts the phone down. It clicks and dings and he buries his face in his arms and tells himself that he's being  _stupid_. She's only just had a  _baby_ , and she's definitely not in the mood for speaking to anyone apart from said baby. Get a  _hold_ of yourself, man. This is your own problem.

The phone rings. It's loud and it catches him off guard, and he jumps, and stares at it, and swallows, hard (his mouth is suddenly dry) and picks it up.

He doesn't get opportunity to speak first, before she does. "Hi, this is Sybil Pandemik. How did you get this number?" And she sounds pissed off. And Anton berates himself, mentally, for being such a fucking  _idiot_ and bothering the poor woman in the middle of... parenting, he assumes, and mumbles out a response as quickly and non creepily as he can.

"You gave it to me." he says, and then. "I, ah. My name is Anton Papierwaite. I... your rabbit friend may have introduced us." And also the child. But he doesn't get to add to that because she responds immediately. "Oh!" And she sounds a lot happier about it. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't, uh, recognise your voice. Thank you so much for coming with me. It honestly really helped! Liberty did just fine. Weighed about ten pounds, which is kind of a lot? But I suppose she's part statue, so... I mean, I guess that would make a difference. No, no, she's healthy. We're both okay." And then, "Are you okay?" And he decides he really can't bother her after that.

"Of course." And it's a lie and the little laugh is fake and he knows that and he wonders if she's picking up on it, because it definitely sounds obvious to him. "I was just... making sure. That. You were... Alright."

He's forgotten how to talk to people. One hundred fucking years, and two weeks later he forgets how language works. There's a silence at the other end, and then she says "We're both fine." and then, "Are you sure? You sound really nervous. Did you want to talk about anything?"

And he's such a  _fucking idiot_. "No, no, nothing at all, Ms Pandemik. Merely checking in." Stupid! A god damned  _fool_. "I am entirely content in the knowledge that you're both-- did you say part statue."

That might have taken a while to sink in.

"Yeah." She says. "She gets that from Abe." And Anton pauses to run that back in his head. "Abe." he says, and Sybil laughs, and says "Or the, uh, remake, I guess? Used to be a memorial statue. Or something. I don't know, ask Sam and Max, but she's settling in pretty well now."

Anton resolves that he will never ask Sam and/or Max anything for the rest of his days. "I see." He really doesn't. He tries not to think about how that definitely should not be possible. "Uh." What does he even  _say to that??_ The Almighty Gods themselves. "....Good luck with that, Ms Pandemik." And he doesn't expect her to laugh at that, but she does, and says "I'm definitely going to need it," and something inside him kind of melts.

Gods, but he's such a fucking idiot. They say their goodbyes and he hangs up the phone and he buries his face in his arms, and he somehow actually feels worse. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you do want to @ me though leave a comment because i love reading those.


End file.
